Discovering the Waterfront
by sasukesassthetic
Summary: It is only once she enters his life that Tobirama comes to understand how the Uchiha treasure love above all else.
1. Moonlight

_**Dear Reader, thank you for tuning in. I'll have a more elaborate note at the close.**_

**1/2 page format recommended.**

**All mistakes are mine.**

**I love you all. I love REVIEWS almost as much.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.**

_**Enjoy.**_

**Chapter One**

_White camellias-_

_only the sound of their falling._

_moonlit night._

_-Ranko_

Springtime settled over in the land of fire much faster than Tobirama had anticipated. The last time he had thought to consider his surroundings, sheets of snow blanketed the fields and illness plagued his troops. Too many deaths later, here he was, in a stiff, previously unworn kimono observing as his oldest and solely remaining brother, Hashirama, exchanged sake with the Uzumaki woman, Mito. Had he not known any better, Tobirama would have guessed that two were as smitten and as happy as could be; from the outside, he tried to envision a couple that had fallen in love slowly, naturally, like hydrangeas come to bloom in mid-may, and decided to marry- to bind themselves to one another- out of the sheer desire to be tethered so strongly to the Earth, if only for one reason; for one person. Tobirama had long ago learned of the inadvertent burden the gods bequeathed to him when they blessed him with such unyielding shrewdness. He was far too versed in the scheme of life and all that it entailed to be so naïve. This was but one of a thousand marriages arranged in the name of coalition. Tobirama only hoped that it would be as advantageous as anticipated.

Wine colored eyes swept over the scene of the evidently happy pair. Hashirama wore the same humble smile that adorned his inviting face any minute of his life, hardly a surprise there. If the man could smile in the face of impending death, surely he could handle a marriage. Still, it was mildly surprising to see the typically composed Mito returning his brother's grin, even if only in some small, clandestine way meant only for Hashirama to witness. Tobirama emitted a soft breath of humor. Some small part of him only wished the woman, who had only ever _heard_ of the great Senju Hashirama until a several weeks earlier, could understand just how lucky she was to have been matched with such a man. And not in the regard of social status, no; Hashirama, as reluctant as Tobirama was to admit it, was about as wonderful as they came: handsome, intelligent, kind to a fault, and lax despite his un-official standing as the most powerful and consequently most threatening shinobi in the existing great nations. But, more importantly, Hashirama quite possibly felt the happiest when he was making others happy. This was one of the largest distinguishing features between Tobirama and is oldest brother, and in that, Tobirama hoped Mito felt an iota of the appreciation that she should.

Despite the arranged manner of it all, Tobirama could not help noting a foreign glint in his brother's eye- he chuckled- something so akin to genuine happiness.

The festivities of life had never appealed to Tobirama. This, not so surprisingly, was still the case at his brother's wedding. People chitchatted and tossed back bottomless drinks and smiled thoughtlessly about Kami-knew-_what_. Yes- it was a happy occasion. But few were the jovial instances in a warring period. While others spoke of being content in the moment, Tobirama allowed his mind to meander into the safety of the future, or more importantly, the lack thereof. Understandably, it was difficult for others to see things as he saw them. The world, ironically enough, worked better this way.

"Look at the happy couple!" they said.

Next week we prepare for reconnaissance in Rain, he thought.

"The heavens have blessed them!" they said.

The forces on the northern front are in need of new shoes, he thought.

"May they have many children!" they said.

Forty children were made orphans last week, he thought.

Life was a living, breathing body of vicissitudes, and no one understood that better than the men that braved its waters.

A heavy hand landed on his shoulder with a familiar squeeze. Tobirama peered to his left, hardly turning a cheek; he had felt Hashirama approach long before the man ever touched his shoulder. Sanguine eyes examined the groom before turning forward once more. Hashirama took a seat beside him.

"I do hope you're not getting lost in thought at my wedding, little brother," Hashirama spoke with affectionate humor in his voice, like sunset coaxing the moon back into the sky as it took its rest.

Tobirama winced slightly at the unintended- or _completely_ intended- condescension. "Weddings are not cause to hinder the workings of the mind," the younger man responded in his quintessential detached baritone.

"I suppose you're right," Hashirama nodded, "however, I can't help the feeling that you're so, so wrong." Hashirama spared his brother a knowing glance, to which Tobirama merely shook his head and waited for the man to proceed, which he did. "You see- weddings are cause enough for a number of things- a transition in life, a joining of two lives, two families, two cultures." He clapped a hand down on Tobirama's shoulder, "But more importantly- it's an opportunity to get some hard liquor in you before you die of a stroke at sixteen. Now drink." The groom set a full saucer of sake on the table and looked to his brother, mischief glowing in his honey brown eyes.

Tobirama raised a brow at the offer. In his sixteen years of life, alcohol had never been something he cared much for. While some clans coped with war by way of the bottle, the Senju were a dignified group of organization, and such strict organization left no room for carousing. Like his father before him, Tobirama was not an indulgent man.

"Just a sip," Hashirama coaxed, "and I may let you off the hook early."

_That_, however, was a promising proposal.

Picking up the saucer patiently, Tobirama tipped its contents down his gullet all at once and set the container down with a _thunk_. He gave his brother a measured look.

"Happy?" the silver haired man said, earning a fast smile from Hashirama.

"Ecstatic, actually," the groom replied. Dark brown eyes gazed around the room, not necessarily observing, but looking.

"I'd say about every major clan in the village is here. And most of Mito's family, of course."

Tobirama nodded in affirmation, his eyes linger to a very specific section of the festivities, one made up of Uchiha emblems and raven hair. "Yes, it appears so."

Hashirama sighed with certain disappointment in his face, "Does your prejudice pervade even my wedding, Brother?"

Tobirama found it difficult to affirm his brother's accusation through the sudden thickness in his chest. Truly, it was a bit frustrating that with just one look Hashirama could see straight into his thoughts somehow. It was a blatant lie to say that Tobirama never entertained the idea of a perfectly placid coexistence with the Uchiha. However, it _was not_ a lie to say that he believed such a thing to be perfectly feasible anywhere in the near future. When it came down to it, he was a Senju, born and bred. He could not so simply live to fight his enemy one day and turn to shake his hand the next.

"I suppose you'll have to excuse me if I'm a little overly vigilant toward the people that have sworn genocide over our clan for generations," Tobirama spoke with heat in his voice, a wry humor tagging itself to his words.

He felt a certain disappointment erode his brother's calm, characteristically happy features. From the outside, it was increasingly intriguing to consider the two were brothers. Everything about the older brother exuded warmth; the deep, earth brown tones of his hair, the summer stain of his tanned skin, and the wholeness of his dark, trusting gaze. Everything about the younger brother was quite the opposite; frosty white hair, like ice, pale skin, and shallow, apathetic, crimson pools where his eyes- the windows to his soul- should be.

The contrasts only became more apparent as one came to know each brother.

Sometimes appearances truly do speak certain truths.

"Brother," Hashirama began, "how many times do I have to tell you you're too young to have such old prejudices?"

"You don't have to tell me at all- ."

"Don't I?" Hashirama defended, the tone of the understanding father they never had manifesting in his voice. "I promise you that it is only once you forget your resentment that they will do the same." Dark brown eyes stared into vermillion with a deep-seated sincerity. There it was again- the impossible idealism of his brother's that had him second-guessing everything he'd ever been taught in his life, keeping him up at night like no annoying lark outside his window ever could.

Sighing that inimitable sigh of his, Tobirama turned his gaze to his brother, "Don't you have a wife to be entertaining?"

The groom gave a hearty laugh. "Actually, Mito is quite good at playing diplomat most of the time, so I think she'll be alright." Hashirama stared after the woman, who seemed quite occupied playing peek-a-boo with one of the Senju children. His wide smile humbled, "But then again, maybe I _will_ keep her company."

Hashirama stood from the table, and Tobirama followed suit.

With a crooked brow, Hashirama looked over his brother as he stood. "Okay, either you're going to talk to one of the pretty girls that have been eyeing you this evening," the dark haired man guessed, "or you're leaving."

"I've said my proper hellos," Tobirama affirmed with a passive face, "and now I have work to do."

As if he had expected that much, Hashirama nodded, "I suppose you've done your time." The dark man turned on his heel and made to rejoin his guests.

Tobirama resisted a roll of his eyes and stared after the man as he began his walk away.

"Hashi."

Glancing over his shoulder, the older Senju smiled and turned toward his younger brother.

Having a lapse in his usual frigidness, Tobirama stepped forward and wrapped his brother in a firm embrace. Because that's what you do on your brother's wedding day. "Best wishes, Brother," he said in a warm tone that Hashirama hadn't heard in years.

Just as soon as it had happened, Tobirama released and turned down the path leading out of the festivities. Hashirama stared after his brother with silent contentedness until his silver hair was but a blur in the distance of the forest.

* * *

Tobirama ambled down the pathway in the forest that led back to the village. Paper lanterns danced from tree to tree, happy souls of a celebrating forest, lighting the whole way back to the village. A calm rolled over his body like an old friend come for tea as he simply allowed himself the leisurely stroll. Feeling the wind at his back, Tobirama sewed a string of water through his fingers, thoughtlessly molding the chakra. He repeated the second nature mantras that had ingrained themselves into his mind long ago, when he had first begun his water nature training with his mother. Long, almost lost memories of her movements floated through the back of his mind. _Soft, smooth, wading_, she had said. _An extension of self._ Still, he could see himself, tall enough to walk but hardly old enough to understand the purpose of her lessons. He could see her soft hair, streams of moonlit silver, swaying in the winter winds, and the way she would entwine the streams of her water with his own. He could still feel the absolute awe swelling in his chest as he watched her dance with the jutsus, feet gracefully gliding over the water as she produced luscious waves that waded all down the river. More than anything, he remembers the pride in her eyes as she watched him produce his very first whirlpool, though he very nearly sucked himself under and into its current.

So swiftly she had pulled him from his own doing, and held him, a soft smile set in place-

It was only through the monotony of his reminiscence that Tobirama felt the second presence.

He stopped dead in his tracks there at the edge of the forest; the string of water he sewed between his fingers fell limp into the earth, along with every thought of his past life. He turned his cheek to the hidden companion. "I know you're there."

Silence.

Furrowing his brow, he turned toward the possible opponent. "Fine," he spoke, "have it your way." Pulling a river of water into his grasp, Tobirama prepared to send it in after his foe, before-

"I wasn't hiding!"

A _girl_?

Tobirama retracted his stream. A firm frown set in place over his features, and he searched through the shadows of the branches before coming to settle on her figure.

"Come down," he said, allowing the water to dissipate.

Expectedly, she did not comply, instead choosing to shield herself behind the safety of the tree trunk. Half her features remained apparent to him, washed in the ghostly white light of midnight moon.

"Hmph," he sounded, nearly amused.

The dark blue hues of her formal attire revealed a number of things to him. One, that she was an Uchiha, and two, that she had also been in attendance of his brother's wedding. The decidedly stark contrast between her snowy skin and dark hued hair also served as an indicator, though something about her lacked the severe blackness of most Uchiha. The silence with which she had managed to move through the trees, presumably masking her chakra, told him that she was a kunoichi; albeit, young, not much older than eight years old.

Tobirama narrowed his eyes, "I suppose I don't have to tell you how suspicious it looks for an Uchiha, even as young as yourself, to travel the same path as a Senju for such a long way, and so covertly." He cocked a slim, silver brow.

Her gaze was reluctant to meet his own, even as significant distance remained between them. She regarded him with a mix of the anticipated gaze with which one might meet a possible threat, a long known foe, and a distinctly curious eye that a child might just as easily place on a potential friend. It was just like a child, he decided, to hope for friends wherever they went; so blissfully oblivious to the blatant discoloration of life.

Opening her mouth to speak, she reserved herself, tucking further behind the tree; a striking look in her eye stirred Tobirama in ways completely unfamiliar to him.

Like a sixth sense, Tobirama found himself most distracted by the life coursing through her body. Throughout his lifetime of battling the raven-haired clan, he had come to acquaint himself with a chakra flow that was unique in its ferocity, its hostility, and its passion. This child, this particular flow of chakra, was no less passionate in its force, though there was a definite clemency in its flow, a tenderness- a warmth that absolutely confounded every perception he had of true _warmth_. Mentally shaking the thought from his head, Tobirama cast a last glance up toward the woman before turning his back.

"You'll do well to make yourself known in situations like this one," he said, "untrustworthy characters travel in the shadows. Don't be mistaken."

He almost stalled as her heard her voice, soft against his senses; like evening wind.

_"Hai, Tobirama-san."_

* * *

Even as she watched him walk away, Haruka was not certain why she chose to make herself known just as she reached the edge of the forest. Upon seeing Tobirama of the Senju clan leaving the wedding just as she did, she made a conscious decision to travel apart from him if only to avoid the awkwardness of traveling with a stranger as well as evading the infamous, unwelcoming aura of the Senju. Proficiently enough for an eight-year-old, it seemed, she had hidden herself, kept quiet even under the impossible pressure. Occasionally, she would even stop to watch him slowly disappear into the forest ahead of her, only to regain proximity to him.

Before that day, she had never seem the famed shinobi, nor his wood-manipulating brother- and _my_, had he been a fascinating thing to watch. Everything about the cold boy was careful, calculating, and vigilant. Exiting the forest, she had felt the intense curiosity rearing its dangerous head, and she screamed inside to see his reaction to the sudden company; to experience his coarseness firsthand. Or maybe, just maybe, she had always- since the moment she laid eyes on him and his icy blue aura- simply wished to feel those cold, calculating eyes on her.

Watching him walk further into the Senju settlement, Haruka felt more certain with every passing moment that it was the latter.

* * *

_**A Note for my Lovely Readers**_

_Hi! Welcome to my first installment of DTW. _

_This is a story I've been waiting and waiting to write. Tobirama, I feel, is such an overlooked character and I always found myself wondering what exactly his whole story was. The entire foundation period of Konoha is something that thoroughly intrigues me, and what better a way to delve into that than to write about it?_

_Really, it's a mix of difficulty and freedom to know so little about this period of the Naruto universe. Difficult, in that I try to stay as close to being canon as possible, and nice in that I have so much ambiguity to work with in terms of creating my own storyline._

_The first few chapters will skip around in the years leading up to the actual first real meeting between Tobirama and Haruka, so bear with me. We have quite a bit of establishing to do- but I promise it'll all be more than worth it._

_Thank you so much for tuning in._

_Reviews are welcome. (Time to build a readership, I guess!)_

_-Vanessa_


	2. Dawn

_**Dear Reader, thank you for tuning in. **_

_**I'll have a more elaborate note at the close.**_

**1/2 page format recommended.**

**All mistakes are mine.**

**I love you all. I love REVIEWS almost as much.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.**

**Enjoy.**

* * *

**Chapter Two**

_All in calmness-_

_the earth with half-opened eyes_

_moves into winter_

_-Dakotsu_

Tobirama always found it a strange thing, the way he felt dawn approaching even before light ever fell on his eyes. Quite different from every other morning, he allowed himself the time simply to lie there, as if sleep still consumed him, or as if it could again. Being the natural born shinobi he was, it proved challenging enough to lie there while his senses roused with each passing second. Nevertheless, he found a mixture of discomfort and content in the tranquility of it all. He didn't even shift as he felt his brother's presence approaching his door.

A subtle slide of the shoji door sounded as the man entered. Softly, Hashirama sat, presumably cross-legged, in front of the seemingly sleeping Tobirama. In the midst of the patient silence, Hashirama spoke a nearly inaudible, "Tobi."

Peeping a sanguine eye open at the man, Tobirama sighed at his brother's gentle tone before groaning his slight annoyance, "Whatever it is, perhaps it can wait until-"

"Father is dead."

Eyes patiently opening at the revelation, Tobirama stared blindly into the space before him. His ears reverberated with the processing information; the information that he had so long expected to hear at some point in his life just as he did for every soul in his life, yet somewhere within himself never considered a possibility until it became a reality. Sitting up from his futon, Tobirama began to see the tiny, translucent dots manifesting in his line of vision before the ache began to pulse steadily in his cerebral cortex; he took the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger, squeezing.

"When," he inquired, on impulse.

"Not two hours ago, I think," Hashirama spoke softly, his brown eyes worn by the night's events. "But there's more, Brother."

Tobirama looked at his brother, a glint of incertitude and rage in his eyes. "What do you _mean_?"

Hashirama searched for the words, as if in disbelief, before his gaze lifted to meet his brother's. "They won't let us have his body."

Wordlessly, Tobirama removed himself from the futon and moved to his armory. Layer after layer, he assembled himself, the sound of clanking metal filling the otherwise silent space. Hashirama stood and brought himself solemnly to his brother's side. "Tobi."

Tobirama secured armor onto his shoulders, "Don't."

Glancing down at himself, he took in each chink in his armor, mere reminders of the brushes with death he'd had over the years. The death that he had so skillfully evaded. The death that seemed to, slowly but so surely, consume everyone and everything around him.

Paying no mind to his brother's silent pleas, Tobirama fixed his hitae-ate onto his face, turned on his heel, and exited the room.

"Brother," Hashirama called after him, finally catching him by the shoulder a few meters outside of the house. "Do you really find it wise to throw yourself into battle, and so blindly?"

Tobirama shrugged off his brother's grip abrasively, "Fine. Tell me, _please_, oh great Hashirama of the wood style- what would you propose I do? Let them keep my father's body? Leave him to rot, or better yet, be food for the crows?" He gripped his hands into fists as they threatened to shake. "You suggest I allow them to rob us a moment's peace even in death?" Crimson stared almost threateningly into brown as he glossed over every image of his father, every stern talk, every time he fought beside him. The moment he closed his eyes, if only for an instant, he was four years old again and it was springtime. His mother sang, sewing up the holes in Hashirama's pants while his father fixed a leak in the ceiling, casting a warm, reserved gaze her way; so few moments of peace did his father have, so painfully few. In a life as difficult, as careful as the one they lived, Tobirama had willed himself over the years not to resent the man, not to take the beatings so harshly, the stern looks to heart, nor to confuse the lack of kindness as a lack of humanity. At the end of the day, his father had been a man fulfilling his duties, first and foremost as a leader to their people.

Tobirama opened his eyes, bearing them earnestly into his brother's. "I will not allow them to rob my father of his peace."

Hashirama averted his eyes, his face shadowed with dismay.

"Where are the men?" Tobirama demanded.

Hashirama merely shook his head, disappointed, though not surprised. "About a mile north. Waiting for my command."

Nostrils flared, Tobirama contained himself, "And what, you came to consult with me? Hashi, you're a lot of things, but dull is not one of them. Was this not what you expected?"

The tall, tan man raised his gaze from the dirt, staring off into the trees; they went on for miles. It was precisely the thing the Senju boys had so favored about Fire Country. There were trees as far as they eye could see, could enjoy. Some part of Hashirama wished so terribly in that moment to return to those indulgent days of childhood, where moments with his brother to sit and enjoy the world had seemed innumerable.

Yet here he stood, looking into the vengeful eyes of a man who just yesterday had been a small boy, wondering, with such sincerity, where the flowers went in the wintertime.

_"__Do you suppose they turn to snow, Brother?"_

Hashirama smiled, a wry smile just as he had all those years ago, the wind sweeping over his features and through his hair.

"I don't know, Tobi," he responded, half-expecting to turn his sights to a perplexed four-year-old with sanguine eyes far too wise for his years. Though, eighteen years later, only a man hardened by a ceaseless war and a long inured heart stood before him.

Tobirama merely nodded, his features straying into dismay, reiterating a soft, "You don't know," to himself. Beginning a trek into the northern forest, Tobirama stopped, turning a cheek to his brother, who didn't have the heart to watch him go. "Either you're with me, or you're against me in this."

It was hardly audible as Hashirama uttered his next words; still, knowing Tobirama heard every bit of it. "The attack. Father provoked it."

The silence between the two maintained itself before Tobirama's gaze finally fell away, setting itself solemnly into the earth.

"And still," the silver-haired man spoke, "I think even you knew that changes nothing."

Hashirama watched his brother disappear into the trees.

* * *

"Okaa-san."

Deep brown eyes glazed over as they seeped into the very scene before her; fires flitted their reflections, dancing, across the shine of her distracted gaze. She slumped over, onto her knees, sinking further and further into the ashy ground where her home once stood. The singed agony on her side was raw, bleeding, black with the residue of the night. She was not certain at what point the pain had dulled itself, a distant ache, only that along with it had gone every other sense of consciousness.

The crisp crackle of burning wood sounded around her, though her ears had long closed themselves off from the chaos that erupted in the settlement she once called home. Charred remains of her home, the only home she had ever had, lay in jagged ruin before her. Its fine wooden arches and the porch, which her father had long ago built for her mother with his own two hands, had been reduced to blackened wreckage. All of it- rubble, that pinned her mother to the very earth before her.

Prudent fingers reached out to trace the delicate rivers of ebony that Haruka had in her youth considered curtains to shield her from every fear in life. So many times she had taken her mother's hair into her grasp and tucked herself securely beneath it, hiding from the world and its uncertainty. How badly she wanted to cast herself beneath that security, and to feel her mother's hand on her back as she softly spoke, _"It's okay, it's okay."_

Stillness had long taken over her mother's features, though Haruka had not moved since, had not breathed, had not felt her heart beat in her chest if only to let her know that some part of the life she had remained with her, even as she watched her mother leave the earth.

She leaned over to inspect the woman's face; half-expecting to see the same face, brimming with beauty and a smile that rivaled the sun itself. Haruka only found herself partially surprised that her mother could, even covered in grime, dirt, and blood, manage to look so lovely.

Frantic, she had run through the Uchiha settlement, which stood on shaky ground as it turned to ash before her eyes. Running, running, running, as fast as she could manage, sparing glances in each direction. She had spoken futile words of reassurance to herself as she turned each corner, her heart sinking further with each step. It was an odd thing to watch everything she had ever known turned to ash as if it had never been anything but that- ashes.

Desperately, she had come across her mother, pinned beneath the rubble of their family home. Hopelessly, she had pushed at its burning remains to free her mother, even as the woman lacked the energy to speak. Even as the wood burned itself into her side, she had pushed, the smell of her own burning flesh and hair not reaching her nose. Sobs overtook the breath caught in her throat, not leaving energy for the screams of agony that sounded in her brain.

"I won't leave you, I won't leave you," she spoke over and over again, a reminder to herself, or to faithless, hopeless life that she would not relieve herself of the burning remains, of her pushing, of her mother.

It was only once a hand caught hold of her ankle that Haruka returned to herself.

Leaning down to meet her mother's fleeting gaze, she still felt as the woman had touched her face, bringing her back down to earth, to say- "Please bloom, my Haruka. There are still so many so in need of springtime."

Long after she felt her mother depart from the body pinned beneath the rubble, leaving only the beautiful shell that Haruka had been blessed enough to love, to seek comfort in, throughout her fourteen years, love cemented her to the ground before her mother, begging, pleading, that she not be forced to leave. Stroking a hand down the length of her mother's cheek, growing colder and colder by the second, Haruka stared with blank, steely eyes into the life before her. Not so suddenly, crimson seeped into dark brown irises, and she faded into unconsciousness.

Haruka could never be certain as to when the fighting began, somewhere out in the miles beyond her home, only that it grew louder as the sun became higher in the sky, and that by nightfall the entire settlement had been swallowed by the great goddess _Amaterasu_, left to ruin in the flames.

* * *

Tobirama watched from the outskirts of the forest as the smoke rose from the ashes of the Uchiha settlement. For as many men as he lost that day, he knew that the enemy had lost so many more. The battle with the raven-haired clan, it had long ago been discovered, was one of ever changing tides. This, however, was monsoon season.

Stony crimson eyes stared into the body bag by his foot; its form hardly resembled the figure with which he had come to associate with his father. His towering, industrial father- reduced to a lump beneath a stretch of burlap. The years of war, of being a soldier, taught him what he needed to know about death, about carrying a body bag. Still, there was a distinct feeling to knowing what was inside- who was inside. It was an odd wonder, to feel that along with the man beneath the burlap laid the very pride for which Tobirama had fought all his life. And as much as this man was gone, Tobirama knew he would never see the end of the fight.

Out of a strange urge in his core, Tobirama swept the vicinity for any trace of- of anything, any one distraction from the gravity at his feet, from the pressure imposing itself on his lungs, from the regret in his heart. He climbed into the canopy of the tree beside him, seeking escape. Swelling every bit of his concentration into his surroundings, he closed his eyes, hand propped steadily against the bark of the tree he stood in.

A pang struck in his chest as he found his senses clinging like the needle of a compass in the direction of the burning Uchiha settlement. Slowly, he zeroed in on the exact perturbation, feeling about for the source. Not so suddenly, he indicated a familiar signature amidst a crowd of fading signatures. Erratically it flared before sizzling out into a low flickering flame of chakra. Gently, it flowed like the streams he so remembered as a child, yet passionately it surged, like a white water river. Still, above anything else, he felt its warmth; warmth, which so deeply confounded him and every true definition he had considered of the word. It glinted in the space between his mind and his eye, like stars in a clear night sky, fading out into amber just before dawn.

Breathless, Tobirama snapped out of his intrigue, fearful realization approaching his senses.

Brows knitting together in regret, he forced himself to think no more of it, pushing every possibility to the far ends of his consciousness. Pulling his father's body bag into his grasp, he allowed himself a breath.

Though even as he trudged off for home, back aching with the aftermath of battle, his thoughts found their way back to that warmth, to that face, soaked in moonlight, all those years ago.

* * *

_**A Note for my Lovely Readers**_

_Hi! Welcome to my second installment of DTW._

_We're still establishing character history and timelines, but man, it's been fun doing it. Haruka's story takes a turn here, whereas Tobirama is heading further toward the plotline and character that we are most familiar with concerning him. _

_I'll have the third chapter out as soon as I can. But in the mean time, thank you, and spread the word about this story! A following gives such a huge boost in the urge to produce._

_Thank you so much for tuning in._

_Reviews are welcome. (Time to build a readership, I guess!)_

_-Vanessa_


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